On Saturday, Nov. 7 and Sunday, Nov. 8, the Holy Cross community had the special honor of welcoming world-renowned jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard to campus for two evenings of music and dialogue, presented by Arts Transcending Borders.
On Sunday, the New Orleans native performed his Grammy Award-winning piece, “A Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina” to a packed Brooks Concert Hall, filled with students, faculty, and staff, alumni, and local community members. The Blanchard Quintet was joined by the Berklee Jazz in Film Orchestra to perform the expanded suite—a poignant meditation of the devastation suffered by New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, originally conceived as the score for Spike Lee’s HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke.”
The performance also directly connected with the current Cantor Art Gallery exhibition, “Katrina Then and Now: Artists as Witness,” a two part installation which focuses on the relationship between Hurricane Katrina and visual art in New Orleans from 2005 to present. On Saturday, Blanchard joined Daina Cheyenne Harvey, assistant professor of sociology and curator of the exhibit, inside the gallery for a conversation about New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina and the artistic response in the aftermath of the disaster. Those in attendance had the unique opportunity to hear from Blanchard himself, surrounded by the work of contemporary artists featured in the second part of the Katrina exhibition, which will be on display through Dec. 18.
The events fell in line with the variety of happenings across campus this semester related to Hurricane Katrina in honor of the tenth anniversary of the disaster.
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